PineBridge Investments’ Second Annual Internal ESG Forum Highlights Progress on Firmwide Initiatives

Reflecting our commitment to incorporating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into our investment processes and corporate responsibility efforts, PineBridge Investments recently conducted its second annual Internal ESG Forum to share recent firmwide initiatives and showcase key topics that we believe will have an impact on society, including geopolitics, the energy transition, commodities trends, and evolving policies.

The forum is part of PineBridge’s commitment to educate employees on ESG topics and approaches as part of continued learning and development and to ensure all employees are aligned with the firm’s commitment to ESG.

The three-day forum consisted of seven sessions featuring both in-house and external experts discussing key topics, including:

• ESG Investor Trends & Business Outlook

• Changing Landscape of Geopolitical Conflict and its Impact on Society and Investment Risk Analysis

• Update on Net Zero Commitment: Implications and Evolution Path

• The Commodities Conundrum for the ESG Investor

• Updates on Energy Transition - Trends & Opportunities

• A “Fireside Chat” on sustainable technologies and clean energy related to the oil service, equipment, and drilling industries

• Investment Team Showcase: PineBridge ESG Investment Platform Advancement

Investment team panelists discussed the initiatives PineBridge has committed to and the path forward on their respective ESG journeys, including a review of investor trends and what drives investment success within ESG investment frameworks. Across asset classes, PineBridge tends to focus on a company’s trajectory on ESG measures, rather than just point-in-time indicators.

As Multi-Asset Portfolio Manager Austin Strube noted, “ESG considerations are a critical feature in the Multi-Asset investment process, particularly from a bottom-up perspective, in terms of our manager selection and due diligence. Our process is fundamentally forward-looking, with the conviction that improvement drives value and that more sustainable cash flow can create economic value for investors." The Multi-Asset team tracks ESG developments in 50 asset classes globally and produces biannual reports on these findings, which inform the implementation of our asset class convictions.

Other critical discussions analyzed changes that the Net Zero commitment is driving for PineBridge and its clients, including the methodology and processes being implemented to help achieve the firm’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

As Kate Faraday, PineBridge’s Global Head of Corporate Responsibility, said, “We signed up to the Net-Zero Initiative because we believe that climate change is a dire threat to global ecosystems, societies, and economies – and we believe the asset management industry has a role in leading and supporting the journey to a carbon-neutral world.”

Commodities are a critical component of any ESG discussion given the push for greener and “new energy” sources, and panelists shared insights into how commodity producers and consumers should be viewed within an ESG investment framework and discussed the latest developments in the commodities sector and their impact on local communities. 

Specifically, panelists shed light on how the energy transition currently underway appears to be driving innovation and retrofitting of existing energy infrastructure. Discussions explored the capital requirements needed for this energy transition and the investment opportunities that investors are evaluating to meet their ESG investment allocation goals.

Lastly, panelists took a deep-dive into some of the investment process enhancements that PineBridge has implemented across various asset classes.

Jonathan Davis, Client Portfolio Manager on the Emerging Markets Fixed Income Team, noted, “As longer-term accredited investors, we would expect to see a convergence between sustainability risk and credit risk over time.”

For more information on PineBridge Investments’ Corporate Responsibility efforts, please visit our Corporate Responsibility page and read our Corporate Responsibility Report.